**ROSE POV**

I wanted more than anything to get my mind off of Captain Richard Winters, and I got my wish alright. If I could have traded it all back for pining away for him, I would have done it in a heartbeat. Instead, I was holding Donald Hoobler's head in my lap as he bled to death in the Belgian snow. I was injecting my sweet Bill Guarnere with morphine and giving a tearful chuckle to Joe Toye wondering, as he lay there with half of a leg, what it would take for him to die. I was handing Skip Muck's rosary to a shell-shocked Don Malarkey, hugging him as he mourned the loss of his best friends.

Dick was still there, a passing longing that wandered through my brain as I lay shivering in a dark foxhole while Bull was on lookout at the OP. When Bull was with me, he kept me busy talking about anything and everything except Captain Winters. We shared our whole lives in that foxhole, becoming as close as any two friends could be. But, for the most part, we were just trying to stay alive. I didn't have time to pine away.

The day before we took Foy, I passed by his tent while returning from a bathroom break and heard Lipton, ever our protector, expressing his serious concern about Lieutenant Dike's abilities to lead us in the upcoming battle. Everyone knew that there was little Winters could do, and I could see from where I stood that his eyes were troubled. He had been worried already, but if Carwood Lipton felt it warranted his protest, things must be much more serious than he thought, and indeed they were. As Lip left to return to the line, I left the cover of my tree and moved to follow. As I passed the small doorway, a familiar voice stopped me in my tracks.

"Rose," he called, and when I turned he motioned me inside.

"Yes sir?" I stopped in front of him, saluting until he stood and returned the gesture and offered me a cup of coffee, which I refused.

Refilling his own cup, he placed it on a nearby ammo box before returning to stand in front of me, so close that I had to look up into his eyes. His voice was soft now and he seemed to be having trouble finding the words he wanted.

"Listen to me, Rose. Tomorrow, when things get bad… I mean, I know it wouldn't look right for me to order you to stay here, but… I guess what I am trying to say is, please just stay safe tomorrow. When it's all over, I… I mean, Easy needs you to be okay."

"Yes sir."

And just like that, weeks of work at blocking those piercing eyes from my mind was undone. He stared down at me, unblinking, for what felt like an eternity, his sharp mind clearly working overtime. In that moment, I no longer felt the cold. I felt only the overwhelming desire for him to unfold from his rigid stance, wrap me up in his arms, and kiss me like I'd been dreaming about since Normandy. When his hand came up to cup my face, thumb caressing my cheek, I sucked in a breath, sure that I must be daydreaming.

**WINTERS POV**

I hadn't really intended to call her over but when I saw her walking by, her name had slipped, unbidden, from my mouth. Now that she was standing in front of me, so close that I could feel the rise and fall of her chest as her breathing quickened, my mind and my heart were battling each other for control of my body.

In a poor attempt to disguise this, I mumbled something about her needing to be safe tomorrow. All the while, heart and head were both screaming in my ears. She stared up at me, her eyes making it clear that she was waiting for me to either dismiss her or kiss her breathless, and I was truly having trouble making the decision. My hand moved to her face and my thumb ran across her cheek, still soft despite the weeks of freezing in the woods. It ran across her weather-chapped lips and her mouth fell open in a soft sigh. My heart had won.

I tilted her chin up and her face showed that she was as scared that I would not kiss her as she was that I would. I could feel myself leaning into her, sliding my hand behind her neck to pull her into me. Her breath was light against my lips and her eyes fluttered closed.

"Ahem," came a less-than-subtle throat-clearing from the doorway. She backed away quickly, her eyes on the ground and her face on fire as she quickly excused herself and scurried around the ever-smirking Lewis Nixon. He watched her go and then turned back to my own reddened cheeks. "Sorry to interrupt. Thought I'd drop in and save you."

"From?"

"Yourself, Dick. Or at least save her from you and your undying sense of duty. I'm not really sure which."

"What are you talking about, Lew? You're the one that told me to…"

"I told you that you needed to talk to her! Figure things out! Make a decision! But that is not what you were doing. You were getting all wrapped up in a moment, and she was right there with you. So, you kiss her and then what?"

I dropped heavily back to my seat and he sat down beside me, handing me a fresh cup of coffee.

"I don't know, Nix."

"Then I'll tell you. You kiss her. Then, because you haven't gotten shit straight in your head, you panic and go back to being your duty-bound, rules-following self. You push her away again and break another piece off of that pretty little heart of hers. And then your guilt drives you, and by association, me, absolutely crazy. She goes into these next few days hurt and distracted. You go in worried, guilty and unfocused. If she lives through it, she spends the rest of the war mending her broken heart in Bull's arms and if she doesn't, then you will never forgive yourself." After finishing his matter-of-fact assessment, he took a deep drag from his cigarette and leaned forward to look me in the eye, continuing, "Look, Dick, I'm all for the two of you winding up together. Really, I am. And I do think that you need to make it known before it's too late that you'd like to be with her after the war is over. But it doesn't seem like you plan on doing that, and whatever was going on in here was certainly not a conversation about the future, or anything that needed to happen right before we take Foy. So, like I said, I was saving you both."

Lewis Nixon was not an intelligence officer for nothing, and he knew me very well. As much as I hated to admit it, he was right. I sighed and sat back, reluctantly meeting his eyes again. He said nothing further, just giving me a small, solemn nod.

"Thanks, Lew."